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Foreign Cinema's New Laszlo Bar Is a Worthy Remake

Rebecca Flint Marx | Photo: Laszlo on Instagram | July 19, 2016

After 16 years, the bar gets a facelift.

Foreign Cinema’s Laszlo bar has been around as long as the 21st century has, and much like the restaurant it’s attached to, it’s managed to maintain its reliable-neighborhood-stalwart status through the years. But all things must change, including Laszlo’s interior decor: Following a four-month renovation, owners Gayle Pirie and John Clark reopened the bar in May.

The 2.0 version features better lighting, new booths, and a retooled sound system for its frequent DJs. That’s all well and good, but the real attraction is Laszlo’s new cocktail menu, brought to you by bar manager Nicky Beyries. Beyries’s Grey Gardens (most of the drinks are movie themed) is an effervescent but woodsy combination of vodka, rosemary syrup, seltzer, and lemon, crowned with a rosemary sprig, while the All About Eve is a potent little sucker punch of walnut-washed bourbon, amaro, bitters, and Cocchi Vermouth di Torino. There’s a new bar food menu, too, from which you can order a little dish of tandoori mixed nuts to pick at. They’re delicious, as is the knowledge that Laszlo, after all these years, endures.